Ride hailing apps seem to be quite in fashion these days but, if you ever wanted to use one and you had a small child with you, a limitation might’ve popped its ugly head. In most countries you’d have to order a special kind of Uber or any of its rivals, which has a child seat for such purposes. Well, it looks like there’s already an app out there for such services alone, called Zūm. This service is aimed squarely at kids at it just managed to raise some $40 million in a round led by BMW i Ventures.
Zūm is currently the leading provider of safe and reliable student transportation for school districts and working families. The company, which celebrates its fourth birthday this month, aims to become the world’s safest and largest child transportation provider and with this new investment, it could very well get closer to that aim. Apart from BMW i Ventures, Spark Capital and Sequoia Capital joined in to raise the company’s estimated value to $70 million.
“Zūm has proven itself as a force to be reckoned with in a market that has a lot of untapped opportunity,” said Ulrich Quay, managing partner, BMW i Ventures. “Its leadership is strong not only because of their drive to help working families, but because they themselves have families and understand the need for better child transportation, today. We’re proud to be supporting Zūm and look forward to seeing its momentum as it continues driving funds back into schools.”
So far, Zūm partnered up with 150 schools and catered to the needs of more than 500,000 students. The new funding will be used to expand Zūm’s business model and increase school partnerships throughout the country as the company works to double its footprint by the 2019-2020 school year. Funding will also support the advancement of Zūm’s proprietary technology, such as its state-of-the-art GPS vehicle tracking and real-time system dashboards for school districts to have full visibility into a child’s commute for enhanced safety and efficiency.
